Within the next week or so, I’ll be a part of the 5Mind, playtesting D&DNext, so I won’t really be talking about the next edition, as I don’t want to let something slip.

However, there’s plenty else to talk about!

My 4e game is going great, though it looks like the Heroes of the Godfell Stone will have to take a break. It’s not definite, as I’m still seeing how well I’m able to balance it, but I’m in my last semester of college, and I’ve got a ton of classes. If I’m having trouble maintaining balance, I’ll be passing the group off to one of the players to run until March when I’m done.

The Marvel RPG is coming out at the end of February, so I’ll be preordering that, and waiting patiently for it to arrive. I’m a big ol’ Marvel fanboy, so I can’t wait to give it a try. I’ll probably be talking about Marvel stuff in the time leading up to it.

In addition, I’ll be playtesting (hopefully) something my brother has in the works that’s being sold to a game company. I know some vague details, but nothing to really talk about at this point.

I’ve also got the Pathfinder online game I’m running, starting next week, so I’ll be able to talk about that too!

I had initially planned on just talking about why I wouldn’t be talking about the new D&D on here, but realized there’s still a lot I can talk about.

Keep rolling 20′s!

It’s coming! According to the NYT, 5e’s announcement is imminent, coming around 10 EST. According to the article:

“On Monday, Wizards of the Coast, the Hasbro subsidiary that owns the game, is expected to announce that a new edition is under development, the first overhaul of the rules since the contentious fourth edition was released in 2008. And Dungeons & Dragons’ designers are also planning to undertake an exceedingly rare effort for the gaming industry over the next few months: asking hundreds of thousands of fans to tell them how exactly they should reboot the franchise.”

Now, they’ve already been asking for some time, in polls on their site, how it is they should proceed in future editions. My prediction? At DDXP there will be some playtesting going on, and a playtest document, similar to what Pathfinder put out when it was still in beta, will be released around that time.

Get ready for a brand new Edition War!

So, on December 14th, I received an email from Stan! at WotC, informing me that the three pitches I submitted were rejected.

While this is very disappointing, I understood where the production team was coming from, as they took the time to explain it.

Below, I’ll show the pitches I submitted, and below that, the letter I received.

“Hello,

This feature-length article will detail how to create massive battles utilizing the rules D&D already has. By combining Skill Challenges with combat, you will be able to, on the fly, create fantastic battles that invoke the spirit of books such as Lord of the Rings and Dragonlance. Modified swarm rules allow the DM to scale up any monster into a unit of soldiers. The article would also detail objectives within a battle for the players to achieve.

Approximate length of article: 4000 words

 -

Dragon – The War at Sea

This feature-length article will feature rules for ship-based combat. It’s all a matter of scale. Rather than utilizing the personal-scale measurements of one square equaling roughly five feet, you instead have one square symbolizing a hundred feet. Slight modification of a monster stat-block gives you a whole wealth of ships. A simple addition to the stat-block’s traits. Certainly the rules for ships seen in Adventurer’s Vault works for a one-on-one ship battle, but if you begin introducing multiple ships, there are serious problems. This would allow for battles at sea, large or small.

I just read an article over at How Not To Run A Game Business in which the author, Fugaros talks with John from Merlyn’s, the game store in my hometown. In a few months, I’ll be returning to my hometown, and will become a regular customer at Merlyn’s again. I’m very excited.

In the article, he talks about how there needs to be more introductory box sets for games, and says that there are only two in the store: the Pathfinder Beginner Box and the Dr. Who RPG. I can think of one more, the One Ring RPG, but that’s not the point I want to make today.

You often see things online sold as a bundle. On Amazon, you are often given the option of bundling the product you’re buying with another product at a small discount. Why can’t game stores do the same?

Say someone comes in and wants to try out RPGs. They aren’t really into fantasy, but like things like Indiana Jones and Barsoom. The game store owner hands them the Savage Worlds RPG bundle, which includes the Savage Worlds Explorer’s Edition, a set of dice, some character sheets and cutouts of templates, all for $20. You’re ready to go! Head out the door with your new hobby!

Or, if they want to play 4e, give them a bundle of the Heroes of the Fallen Lands, The Rules Compendium, Dungeon Master’s Kit and Monster Vault, along with a set of dice, for, say, $60. You’d be offering this all together at less than you’d sell the products individually for, but it would provide the perfect starter, and would encourage the person to come back for more. Hell, when you sell it, you could give them a coupon for 20% off their next D&D purchase at the store, to encourage them to come back for more stuff.

“This is all well and good,” you say (since you apparently speak like someone in the 50′s), “but these bundles don’t teach you how to play like the Pathfinder Beginner Box does.” True enough. What if a game store offered a $5 “Learn to Play D&D” or “Learn to Play Savage Worlds” seminar? Three hours, for anyone who wants to show. They can sit down and learn how to play this new game they’ve gotten. A few weeks later, offer an Advanced class, that would delve deeper into how to play, offering expert D&D advice and the like. I think people would swarm to it.

Those are my ideas. Do you think they hold any weight? If you were a new player, would this interest you?

John, if you’re reading this, I’d be more than happy to run some seminars for you when I come back to Spokane in June.

I apologize for not getting out session reports of our last few games of The Godfell Stone. Whenever I sit down to write them, I realize there’s so much that’s happened in the session it would take forever to write, then I feel lazy. I’m planning on doing a grand “Our Story So Far” thing soon, to cover everything that’s happened.

In the meantime…

A few weeks ago, the heroes destroyed the Iron Circle, banishing them from the Nentir Vale. On the body of Nazin Redthorn, the leader of the Circle, they discovered this letter:

The players then spent the last 45 minutes of the session attempting to translate the document. The words were a combination of Common (English) and Draconic, so  they were required to use a small two-page dictionary I printed out to translate any draconic words over.

Here’s the Draconic alphabet:

The players had a really good time, and I promised them that after they’d translated it, I’d provide the translation here, so that they could study it over. Here it is now.

“Nazin Redthorn, my friend,

In my research, I have discovered an ancient scroll I believe pertains to me.

Hear your fate, O dwellers in the Haven of Winter of the wide spaces;
Either your famed, great town must be sacked by the Prince’s sons,
Or, if that be not, the whole land of Nerath shall feel the death of a Queen of Ravens,
For not the strength of dragons or of chimeras shall hold him,
Strength against strength; for he has the power of Io,
And will not be checked until one of these two he has consumed

Prince Orcus will be most pleased. The alliance of Asmodeus and Orcus grows stronger.

Send your men to the fortress with most haste. The God Slayer will be ours.

Kalarel

The sorcerer shall not escape.”

It’s a simple letter, dealing with a piece of the prophecy they discovered in Session 3, but I think it was effective. If I made it any longer, they were going to be there into the wee hours of the morning.

For Christmas, besides getting the Pathfinder Beginner Box (which will get a full review soon, trust me), I recieved the D&D Comic Book: Shadowplague. This hardcover book, which is conveniently the same size as a D&D rulebook (unlike most hardcover comics) features issues 0-6 of the D&D comic. By issue 0, I’m referring to the free issue everyone at GenCon 2010 got, which introduces the characters.

The comic itself is really incredible. Written by John Rogers, one of the lead writers of the Leverage TV show (and admittedly, the screenwriter of Catwoman *shudder*) and illustrated in gorgeous art by Andrea DiVito, who generally does some fantastic Marvel Comics art, this book needs to be on your shelf.

Clever dialogue, three-dimensional characters, and an interesting and very “D&D” plot, the book is perfect fodder for your next campaign.

The adventuring party consists of your classic tropes: Varis, the elf ranger, Khal Khalundurrin, the dwarf paladin, Adric Fell, the human fighter, Tisha Swornheart, the tiefling warlock and Bree Three-Hands, the halfling rogue. However, at this point, the tropes stop. Each character is unique and different than you expect. The leader of the party, the human fighter, is a former pirate, who carries a cutlass along with his shield and scale mail. The halfling rogue is a sociopath, but in a very endearing way. The elf acts in no way like most elves. The dwarven paladin attributes anything well made to dwarven craftsmanship, which makes for a quite funny exchance of dialogue between him and the elf.

Speaking of… humor! The book is actually quite funny. There are a lot of great jokes that feel like ones that would be made in-character around the table. The back-and-forth dialogue that acompanies the heroes’ journeys through “dungeons deep and caverns old” is really, really good. It feels like a fantasy version of Leverage.

One of my favorite pieces of dialogue is between the dwarf and elf in Issue 0.

The leader of the party, Adric, sees Varis, the elf show up out of nowhere (perhaps the player was late to the game? )

Adric: How did you beat us down here, Varis?
Varis: We elves walk ancient paths.
Khal: “Shortcut”. Just say “Shortcut”.
Varis: I would never offend you that way.

The book concludes with taking issues 1 and 2 and turning them into encounters for you to run. It does it quite well, though I wish I could get larger versions of the maps within.

If you get the chance to pick it up, it’s a perfect read for a D&D adventure. It doesn’t matter what version of D&D you’re playing, you’ll find something in here you’ll like.

I also just found out that Volume 2 is available for preorder! I’ll be picking this up soon.

Go get it!

At the end of the next session of the Godfell Stone, the players will find a letter on the body of one of the NPCs. This is that letter.

You can, of course, click to enbiggen.

The writing is draconic, while the actual language behind the writing is a combination of Common (English) and Draconic. I’ll have a copy for each player, so that they can work on translating it in sections between the five of them. I’ll have a two-page draconic dictionary, as well as a letter cypher so that they can translate.

There’s a lot of text there, and the players will have a lot of work on their hands to translate. I hope they’re up to the task. After they’ve translated it, I’ll provide the translation here.

Here’s the question: Do I have them work on it at the table? With only two hours of game time a week, this will take up a good portion of the time, and it’s going to be after a big fight. Perhaps I should make them wait a week, kick off the translation at the beginning of the next session…

What do you all advise?

What is it about D&D that turns ordinary people into the gaming equivalent of Insanity Wolf:

One minute you’ll be running a perfectly normal adventure, the next, the players will want to kill the princess they’ve been sent to rescue, “Just in case she has Stockholm Syndrome and hates us for rescuing her.”

What.

Usually it’s just one player, but what about when it’s ALL OF THEM?!

Here’s what I think is the problem: Too much choice. You usually see Insanity Wolf Player as a new player. I think when a new player is told “You can do anything you want,” they think “Anything?!” and want to test that theory. I can’t say I blame them for that. People are so used to playing a video game, when given the chance to do anything their heart desires, they want to see how far that stretches.

I think I’ve fixed it.

One of my players, Larry, was the epitome of the Insanity Wolf Player. He stole horses, tried to kill villagers, and in a ballsy and unnecessary move, attempted to kill the elf warriors sent to spring the heroes from prison two sessions ago. One of the players stepped in, stopping him with an arrow. When he and the other player who wanted to kill the elves woke up, they found themselves tied to a tree, the elves around them not happy with them. Begging, pleading, they barely escaped with their lives.

In friday’s session, he was the most reserved I’ve seen him. He was horrified when one of the other players attempted to attack a barracks on their own. Whaaa?! The previous session, he would have joined in the fray. What happened?

He learned that actions have consequences.

This is something not enough DMs emphasize. Yes, you can do whatever you want, but at the same time, everything you do has a consequence to it.

I’ve been trying to hammer this into my players (the new ones) since the beginning of the game. In session 3, when they stole some horses, the stablemaster came after them. When they picked a fight at a bar, the entire bar rose up to fight them. Finally, as I said above, when they tried to kill an elf, the other elves almost killed them.

That player, who wanted to kill everyone in the barracks? It was suggested that if he tried to do so, the bad guys might blame the villagers and make them pay for it, so he backed down.

Your players need to realize that everything they do ripples forward, just like in real life. If they begin to realize that, they’ll be more likely to think twice about becoming Insanity Wolf.

Tycho is right.

They have grown fat.

Lately, I’ve been looking over the Pathfinder rules (I love the fact that all the rules can be found online at Paizo’s site). During the point at which I thought the Godfell Stone was done for, I set up an online Pathfinder game (which, fingers crossed, starts this weekend). It seems everyone is switching to Pathfinder, from Gabe and Tycho to Brian Patterson.

"We be goblins, you be food!"

As I say in the next episode of Dice Monkey Radio (due out in a couple weeks), I don’t think people are abandoning 4e.  I just think they’re burned out from 4 years of 4e. They need a break, but want something still familiar to them.

Pathfinder harkens back to a time just before our heroes became superheroes, as 4e has made them. Back when you could still end up with a character that could be killed with a single hit. It recalls characters whose entire character sheet could fit onto an index card if you really wanted to. It recalls a time when no one even thought about using a card to depict character’s abilities.

The simplicity is what people are going for, I think. What I’m going for with the new campaign. Less prep, smaller stat blocks. Cursed items.

Pathfinder has successfully avoided system bloat, a disease that ravaged 3e during its reign. Every RPG company in the world was making OGL books, creating rules for everything (Again, this is all stuff we talk about in the upcoming Dice Monkey Radio episode). Pathfinder, though it uses the OGL, has avoided a ton of books. It’s been out almost as long as 4e, and has a total of… I think 5 hardback books. Other companies make products for Pathfinder, but mostly in PDF, so it’s easy to ignore it if you feel like it.

These are the reasons I think 4e is losing ground to Pathfinder. However, sometimes you like vanilla, sometimes you like chocolate. The same people who are flocking to Pathfinder will eventually wander back to 4e, I imagine. There’s enough room for two games in this small town.